The West is facing a more powerful terrorism threat now than in the lead-up to 9/11 because of the Middle East’s current political and economic uncertainty, according to one of Australia’s top security analysts.

Research director at thinktank, The Lowy Institute for International Policy, Anthony Bubalo says the region’s many conflicts have galvanised international extremism and provided an environment in which “a whole new generation of jihadists is being re-tooled and re-trained”.

Mr Bubalo argues that the current turmoil in the Middle East is incubating a new generation of jihadists, he says in many respects the current conditions in the region are worse than those that saw the emergence of radical groups like al-Qaeda.

Mr Bubalo says that Australia will need to properly sustain its counter terrorism efforts in years to come, in light of the number of Australians taking part in wars around the globe. He says there is an immediate threat from foreign fighters returning from the Syrian civil war both to Australia and Indonesia with military skills and extremist connections ::::
Mr Bubalo has released a paper on the new terror threat entitled Next-gen Jihad In The Middle East. Anthony Bubalo says the region’s many conflicts have galvanised international extremism and provided an environment in which “a whole new generation of jihadists is being re-tooled and re-trained”.

“The people who launched 9/11 didn’t just suddenly appear on the 10th of September. They were the result of conditions and circumstances that had been developing in the Middle East over a decade and a half,” Mr Bubalo said.

Domestic unrest in Syria, Egypt and Libya, as well as a rise in the number of ungoverned regions, has given jihadists new environments in which to flourish, Mr Bubalo warns.

“The concern is that the sheer number of conflicts in the region [and] the nature of the economic situation will produce a large pool of extremists that will then go on, as they did in the past, to find other conflicts to fight once the conflicts in their own region are exhausted,” Mr Bubalo said. “The worst-case scenario is that we will see over the next decade the incubation and the creation of a large pool of jihadists that will regain a lot of the military skills and regain a lot of the linkages that jihadist groups lost in the decade after 9/11.”

Key Points of Mr Bubalo’s Report:

The conflict in Syria has become a magnet for foreign fighters, including Australians. This should be the immediate focus of Australian counter terrorism agencies.

But developments in the broader Middle East, including in Egypt, are also creating conditions for the reemergence of terrorist groups that could once again threaten the West.

Australia needs to supplement its current efforts to monitor developments in the region by appointing a special envoy or coordinator for the Middle East.

Mr Bubalo says there is an immediate threat from foreign fighters returning from the Syrian civil war both to Australia and Indonesia with military skills and extremist connections.

A former Australian soldier was recently killed while fighting alongside rebels in Syria, while several other Australians have been killed while fighting for factions within the rebel movement.

It is believed there are dozens more Australians and Indonesians fighting in the war-torn nation, and that some have reached senior positions in extremist Islamic groups.

“Australia and Indonesia will need to work together to ensure that any threats that emanate from the Middle East don’t transfer to direct threats either in Indonesia or Australia,” Mr Bubalo said.

He also warned the Government not to become complacent in monitoring the threat from terrorism emanating from the Middle East.

“We have to continue to focus our intelligence and diplomatic efforts in the region to understand what is a very dynamic and very rapidly evolving situation,” he said.

The International Court of Justice – ICJ – has ruled Japan must immediately stop its whaling program in the Antarctic. The ICJ’s 16-judge panel ruled 12 votes to four in favour of Australia’s argument that Japan’s whaling program was not in fact designed and carried out for scientific purposes.

The court ruled that Japan must revoke current whaling permits and refrain from issuing any more. Japan has used the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which permits killing for research, to justify killing whales in the Antarctic.

But the court’s judges agreed with Australia that the Japanese research – two peer-reviewed papers since 2005, based on results obtained from just nine killed whales – was not proportionate to the number of animals killed :: Read the full article »»»»

RELATED! Invisible Children: Kony 2014, Two Years On and Little Has Changed

One of our most popular posts has been Kony 2012, based on the documentary film and campaign to oust Joseph Kony from Uganda.

On October 6, 2005, the International Criminal Court – ICC– announced that arrest warrants had been issued for five members of the Lord’s Resistance Army for crimes against humanity following a sealed indictment.

The Film Kony 2012, a campaign by humanitarian group Invisible Children aimed to make Joseph Kony infamous, “not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest… to set a precedent for international justice”.

Bradley Manning, the soldier sentenced to 35 years in jail for the biggest breach of official secrets in US history, says he is a woman and wants to be known as Chelsea.

“I am Chelsea Manning, I am a female,” Manning, 25, said in a statement given to NBC’s Today show. Manning said he has felt this way since childhood and wants to begin hormone therapy “as soon as possible”. ”I want everyone to know the real me,” the statement said and asked that he be referred to by his new name, Chelsea.

Manning was sentenced on Wednesday for handing more than 700,000 secret files, videos and diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

His lawyers had argued the former Army intelligence analyst suffered a sexual identity crisis when he leaked the files while serving in Iraq in 2009 and 2010. Speaking on the TV show, Manning’s lawyer David Coombs said he expected his client to receive a pardon from US president Barack Obama.

Manning was convicted last month on 20 charges, including espionage and theft and will serve his sentence at the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas :: Read the full article »»»»